But Then I Forgot - Tumblr Posts

Gratitude Journal

My 1 year old nephew has hair: towhead blond wisps enough to make a fauxhawk when he’s fresh from the wash. For the first six months of his life he was sick. He was born with a cold, and just as he got over it, his whole family got whooping cough (turns out you need to update your vaccine on that one). He doesn’t have a voice box. Instead, he has the kind of squeaker toy you squeeze to make sound. Whenever he needs something, he points and squeaks. The rest of the time he is quiet and his sisters (3 and 5) make enough sound to fill two houses.

My nephew has a favorite toy which he knows is his. It’s an orange and white binky chain with his name on it. The binky chain is patterned after The Forbidden Toy (another binky chain belonging to a different nephew who is 8 months younger than he).

He can crawl and is not yet quite confident enough to walk. He knows (instinctively or through repeated denials) he is not to climb the stairs without an adult present.

This is why, on Thanksgiving last, when the food had been eaten and a sort of post-feast calmness filled the house, he climbed up only 3 stairs before backing down them again.

I laid on the floor next to the stairs watching him with half an eye and focusing mostly on that day’s book (Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson). His mom (my sister), sisters, and cousins played merrily in the basement. His dad (my brother-in-law) sat at the half-cleared table playing LIFE with various uncles, aunts, and cousins.

My nephew climbed 3 stairs and looks at me. He climbed down 3 stairs and looked at me.

I smiled at him and said, “Hello, Baby Lem!”

He grinned, too, and climbed 3 stairs and looked at me.

I repeated my greeting and went back to my book.

He climbed down three stairs and looked at me.

He waited only a few more repetitions fore me to understand what it was he wanted.

I dragged myself from the floor and used my finger as a bookmark. Then I joined him on the stairs where he giggle-squeaked and continued upward. 

Every two or three steps he would pause and look back to make sure I was following, before continuing upward.

The 2nd story landing looks out on the living and dining room where the game of LIFE was played. He pulled himself by the railing bars and looked down at his dad and squeaked, squeaked, squeaked, squeaked, squeaked. He had done it. He had climbed the stairs.

In that moment, at the height of my nephew’s victory squeaks to his dad, I realized I had understood. 

And for that, I am grateful.